Ulmir’s Domain. The Flying Lion Painted World. A Few Hours Before the End of The Tribulations.

Zedd observed the lion fly away. They had just managed to speak to each other, halt the fight, when a newcomer came falling from the sky. He silently crept behind him as the latter was busy observing the gigantic lion flying away. He successfully managed to strip the Priest of his weapons then led him towards the injured beast.

A Priest was good news, especially one from Dhobor’s Church. They had the power to heal any wound. As the thought of injuries crossed Zedd’s mind, a mild throbbing on his right hand made him look down. It felt like phantom pain, something he was all too familiar with. But he seemed to have forgotten why he felt that way.

“Stop!” he ordered Javad who was walking in front of him.

“W-what is it Darkstar?”

“I have a strange feeling we’ve been here before. And don’t speak unless you’re spoken to.” He smacked the poor priest with the back of his sword. The metallic ring his sword emitted as it hit Javad in the head seemed to have woken something inside of him. He looked around frantically. He didn’t know what he was looking for, but he had a feeling he’d recognize it.

Javad slowly turned around to look at Darkstar. The man was frowning, scanning the area around them. Zedd looked up at the sky then frowned again. “Something’s not right around here,” he said then motioned the Priest to move forward with the pointy end of his sword. As Javad turned around and started moving, he heard Zedd’s voice again.

“Stop! Let’s go there!” He was pointing at a steep rock in the distance. Javad didn’t protest but did as he was told. The obsidian stones around them made them move slowly. One slip up could cause severe lacerations which wouldn’t be easy to heal. Zedd didn’t rely on the Priest to heal him. He knew the coward would relish at the opportunity to see the famous Darkstar perish.

Upon reaching the steep rock, Zedd inspected it to find different kinds of scribbles in the old runes. “I knew it!” he yelled, which caused the Priest to jump from fright.

“What’s this?” Javad asked, pointing at the runes.

“Cryptic messages, they point us to the right direction… I think.”

“What do they say?”

“Let me see,” Zedd went for the longest arrangement of runes then read it for the Priest. “Look at the sky and remember.”

“Remember what?” the Priest asked.

“Oh look, the other one says: ‘Ask the Priest to shut it!’ isn’t that funny? I think it’s hilarious.”

“Who could have written these?” Javad wasn’t too pleased with Zedd’s teasing.

“Remember where you are…” Zedd was reading the other lines, not minding the Priest’s numerous questions. He had a riddle in front of him that needed solving. “The day is long…. These are warning messages!”

“From whom? And would you kindly answer my questions?” Javad was yelling this time, trying to make his voice heard.

“Your interrogation hinders my focus, Priest. I’ll explain everything once I’ve made sense of this. Now would you please shut it? I’m trying to concentrate here.” A smack to the head made the Priest focus on the pain rather than Darkstar.

Zedd kept circling around the runes, trying to decipher the messages he’d written, but forgotten. He was taught to read and write the runes by an old friend. They were rumored to withstand time, however it changes.

He was kneeling next to the first rune, inspecting the writing and the carving depth when he suddenly sprung back up. The first message was engraved deeper than the others. He had found his first clue.

“What I’m going to tell you might not be pleasant to hear, Priest,” Zedd said. Javad looked at him with fearful eyes. “We’re trapped here, with possibly no way out. We can’t starve or die of old age. We could die, I think, but it’s highly unlikely.”

“What do you mean?” Javad asked.

“The lion flew at me when I just arrived. I fought back and injured him during our first exchange. I didn’t realize the beast could speak then. But when it spoke to me, I realized I was in for more than what I bargained for. Then you arrived and interrupted our pleasant conversation. The beast asked me to dispose of you, which I think I couldn’t do.”

“Why do you speak in the past tense Darkstar?”

“Well at least you managed to notice that, credit given. Anyway, we’re trapped in a time loop that we can’t get out of. The beast is more dangerous than I thought. We can’t really fight it. We have to defeat it, sure. But we can’t fight it. We stand no chance that way.”

“You do realize,” Javad started, looking annoyed, “that you sound like a raving madman, don’t you?”

“Tell me, dear Priest,” Zedd started. “What do you know of Ulmir’s secret?”

“How do you know about that?” Javad asked. The question earned him another smack from Zedd’s sword.

“Answer the question, Priest. I am in no mood to answer irrelevant remarks.”

“I am a Priest Darkstar,” Javad finally answered. “They tell me nothing. Only the High Priest is allowed such knowledge.”

Zedd and Javad were walking away from the flying lion. They were actually walking the opposite way. The Priest was about to ask Black Eyes about it but the pain in his head reminded him to keep his mouth shut. Zedd was looking at the volcano as they walked away from the beast.

“You’ve surely heard of the Watchdog, haven’t you?” he asked the Priest as they both reached a large field with multiple acid pools in it.

“I’ve heard tales, like everyone else,” Javad answered as he looked at the strange smoke that left the ponds.

“I’ve seen the way you looked at this painting in the vault, Priest.” Zedd nudged his companion with the pointy end of his sword, urging him to move toward the pools. “You know something and your Lord Supreme knows it too. Why do you think Utar threw you in here in the first place?”

“How do you know so much about us?” the question left Javad’s mouth before he could stop it. Another smack followed and Javad felt his head turn.

“It’s a funny thing pain,” Zedd said as they both navigated through the acid pools. “It teaches us to fear things we don’t understand. You know not to touch fire because you’ve experienced its burns once or twice in your childhood. And you’ll learn to fear me as we try to solve this Painted World’s riddle.”

Javad was busy massaging his throbbing head. He was being used by the man with black eyes for reasons he had yet to know about. He was forced to follow him because of his cowardice, of his fear of death. They kept walking in silence for quite a while. Javad’s refusal to answer didn’t seem to bother Darkstar. He was actually humming some song as he occasionally nudged the priest to move forward.

“I’ll answer your question,” Zedd finally said. “But I’ll need you to tell me something I don’t know about Watchdog, or about Ulmir’s Domain. Do we have an agreement?”

“Yes!” Javad answered. He ducked as he spoke, afraid to get another smack in the head. Zedd heartily laughed before speaking again.

‘You answered too quickly, you stinking coward!’ Zedd thought but kept it to himself. He needed some information he hoped the Priest had.

“Speak then,” Darkstar urged. “Do you think I’d reveal my secrets before getting paid?” He smacked the poor Priest in the head and the latter fell to his knees, holding his head and whimpering. “Oh stop it! You can easily heal yourself. Fear has really taken complete control over you, Priest.”

“What do I get if I tell you about the Watchdog?”

“You get nothing,” Zedd answered nonchalantly. “You know nothing of the beast. Or rather, you think you know something where in reality, you know nothing.”

“Then why ask me?” Javad asked then ducked.

“You’ll have to learn to avoid all my attacks, at all times, Priest.” Zedd said, brandishing his sword in the air. “If you want to avoid getting a huge lump over your head, I suggest you man up a little.” Zedd invited the Priest to sit on a small rock between the acid pools. He urged him to heal himself.

After the Priest finished his healing chant, Zedd spoke again. “I ask you since I want to know what kind of myth circulates about the dog inside the Castle.”

The Priest looked apprehensively at Black Eyes. He was afraid to speak and say something that would displease his tormentor. Noticing Darkstar’s frown and questioning gaze. Javad swallowed his saliva with a loud noise then spoke.

“They say the dog keeps a secret older than Ulmir himself. I heard the Hunter God was killed by our Lord Supreme long ago, before he took over this realm. The dog, however, didn’t belong to the Hunter God and kept guarding whoever occupied this realm long ago.”

Javad’s answer caused Zedd to make an irritated face. Darkstar let out a long sight before he answered.

“What you said is partly correct. The Watchdog never belonged to Ulmir. Nobody knows who it belonged to, really. Some say it guards a treasure. Others say it keeps an ancient evil at bay. All I know is that your Lord Supreme never managed to defeat it. But I know that he managed to leave this Painted World unharmed.”

Noticing Javad’s intrigued look, Zedd clarified. “I was in the vault when he spoke to Utar about this. I even heard them speak about some Holi Tribulations happening on the other Painted World.”

‘How do you know all this?’ The question was stuck in Javad’s tip of the tongue. But he decided not to speak. He didn’t want to experience that pain again. Instead, he looked at Black Eyes in silence, waiting for him to finish his speech or ask a question. Surely enough, Zedd had another question to ask.

“Can you think of something… strange… that happened in the Castle before the hunt? Or during previous hunts? Anything that could be useful, answer this question and I promise I’ll tell you my secret.” Zedd smiled and bobbed his head to the side. He loved teasing people that way. Looking at his strange eyes was scary enough. Looking at the man tilting his head to the side and smiling was unsettling, even terrifying under some circumstances.

Javad made an effort to think, but couldn’t find anything useful to tell his tormentor. “Master Utar had always kept the peace in this Castle. I can’t think of anything out of the ordinary, except this year’s Hunt of course.”

“Didn’t it strike you as too much of a coincidence?” Zedd asked. “I mean, one intruder was enough to worry about. But two, plus the Alfa Photon getting sick, that’s something Ulmir’s Domain has never experienced.”

Javad nodded.

“I managed to evade your watchful eyes thanks to a neat little trick, transmutation,” Zedd told the Priest. At hearing Zedd’s words, Javad clutched his fists together hard.

“I have a familiar, who I think you know, Myles Stalwart. He’s a Fairy to whom I gifted a Transmutation Fragment. He’s been using it very well ever since – “

Zedd suddenly dropped to the ground, writhing and screaming his lungs out. Javad saw this as the perfect opportunity for to strike his tormentor. But before he could attack, he saw Zedd’s veins turn purple and his eyes bulge out. Perhaps the man was dying. Perhaps it was his biggest chance at finding the Watchdog himself.

Javad retrieved his sword from Zedd’s belt than darted away, zigzagging through the acid pools. Zedd on the other hand was still writhing on the ground. Images flashed before his eyes as he felt something being wrenched out of his very soul. His saw himself as a young boy with dark blond hair. He saw himself running away from Utar and his best friend who were chasing him.

He saw himself reach an island with two companions, a ghost and a raven haired woman. He saw them treating his fever and his wounds. He saw himself meeting other people and fighting multiple monsters. Then he saw a man with Black Eyes training him and educating him. He listened intently to the man who gave him a life and a purpose.

Then everything went blank. Zedd opened his eyes. He was still in the Painted World. His head hurt badly. His vision was a blur as he looked around for the Priest. Javad was running toward the volcano. Darkstar cursed his bad luck as he struggled to stand up. It felt as though part of him was ripped apart.

“Myles,” he mumbled under his breath. “Shit, they’ve taken him away from me.”

Zedd immediately found a rock on which he sat in a lotus position. He closed his eyes and stabilized his breathing before getting up again. He looked for Javad who seemed to be still running for the volcano.

“That coward knows something after all. I should really stop bullying people!” he told himself. It was more like a reprimand, a negative note to oneself.

“You either torture or you manipulate. Bullying gets you nowhere boy!” a womanly voice echoed in his head. Zedd was about to find himself absorbed in his memories, if it weren’t for the flying lion whose wings were flapping above him. Zedd looked up to see the lion slowly lowering itself toward him.

“Well done, Darkstar!” the lion’s voice reached Zedd’s mind. “You’ve sacrificed something dear. You may pass.”